Going Home: A Carmilla Fanfiction
by SheWhomLaughsLast
Summary: Set post Episode 35, Carmilla wakes up in the chasm, gravely injured but alive. How long has it been? How did she survive? Did Laura make it out okay? Spurred on by these unanswered questions, a dying Carmilla sets out to return to her friends. But, as Carmilla's weakening body begins to give out, can she make it to Laura in time? Only one way to find out.


**Hey, guys. For everyone who has been already waiting for my other fics, please see the bottom for an author's note. I had this idea in my head for a while and I needed to get it out. If you haven't watched Carmilla, youtube it. Not my most polished work but I've read it so many times I can't pick out what's wrong anymore.**

**Anyway, enjoy and if you want a second part please let me know!**

I woke with a gasp.

And a cough. Many, many wracking coughs that set my lungs on fire. The dirt grinded against my face as the coughs heaved my body. My fingers ground into the earth and I blinked a few times. Small little puffs of light danced on the ground and swirled in the air, transfixing me for a moment.

What the hell happened?

Everything hurt. My head hurt, my body hurt. Every breath set my throat ablaze. Even the dull glow of those weird puffs burned my retina. It felt like my skin was covered in a light layer of what had to be dirt, like sandpaper—

Holy. Crap.

I _hurt._

I was _alive. _

Or, at least as alive as I had been before I played the hero.

I hadn't expected to survive the fall.

When I grabbed that sword from its underwater exile, it started to drain me immediately. Not a lot, but bit by bit. I was surprised I managed enough steam to get to the ritual, shift, and haul Laura away from the light. My heart had almost stopped in my cold dead body when I saw how close she had gotten. Had I been even just a moment too late…my favourite cupcake would have ended up the exact same way as Elle.

_Elle._

It must have been her. She must have saved me.

It all came back in flashes. As I leapt into the light, Elle reaching for me, I felt her hands on my waist. A warmth flooded me, consumed me. Elle's spirit filled me and granted me more strength than I needed. There was an understanding with that embrace, an acceptance that I had craved from her when we were together. The only rational reason I had for the sudden change of heart was that she had seen me save Laura, the same girl she had been trying to protect with her appearances in Laura's dreams, in all the other girls' dreams.

I had condemned Elle to this fate, but I_ hoped_ she had seen now that, since then, I had only been trying to help every girl I was sent to collect. That, because of her death, I stopped being a monster. I hoped I had just proved it by grabbing Laura and dragging her away, by finally, _finally _confronting my mother with something other than heartbroken words, by plunging the sword into the heart of the light that had held Elle prisoner for all this time.

I hoped she had seen that I would give my life to right my wrongs, to save her and all the other girls I condemned to be chow for my mother's glow bug.

But that didn't really matter now, did it?

Whatever had happened for whatever the reason, I had still hit the ground hard enough to knock me out. I was at the bottom of a huge chasm with no sense of how much time had passed. I didn't even know if the others had survived the fight.

I wracked my brain, trying to piece together how long it had been, trying to compare my hunger to when Laura had me tied up for nine days, but even that didn't help. I still didn't know how many days had passed, or _if _days had passed.

I needed to know if Laurasurvived the fight. I closed my eyes. The stupid girl. Knowing her, she probably got herself eaten or drained or worse. She better have survived.

There was only one way to find out.

I pushed myself up. My shoulder refused to cooperate and I fell back to the ground. Something was wrong with my arm. I couldn't move it. Judging by the crippling pain that was now shooting through my nerves, it was probably dislocated.

Fantastic.

I pushed myself over, gritting my teeth against the jolts of agony, and stared up at the opening of the chasm. It had to be at least a football field of dirt wall looming over me. Something on the floor caught my eye.

The sword lay only a foot or so away from me, snapped cleanly in half. The dull glow it had once emitted now gone, leaving a once all powerful weapon now a useless hunk of metal.

Just beyond that, however, underneath a boulder something was laying, just peeking out. With enough motivation and momentum, I managed to rock myself forward into a sitting position and eventually to my feet. I clutched my arm to my side and took a closer look.

It was Mother's hand. I recognized the ring wrapped around her middle finger, the perfectly manicured nails. Mother was dead. My tormentor, the woman who had single handily controlled and manipulated this sacrifice and me, the woman who killed Elle to punish me, had finally met her demise.

I could not bring myself to smile.

I clenched my teeth and turned away from her. I stared up at the mouth of the chasm.

"Well, Carmilla," I murmured to myself, "this is what you get for playing the hero." I looked at the dirt in front of me and dug my fingers into it with surprising ease. I paused a moment there.

All over my arms and the rest of my body were lacerations, ranging from an inch to three inches, crisscrossing and randomly placed. It had to be from when I fought my mother, when she came at me in a form of claws and beaks and smoke. I sighed and stared back up at the opening "okay, Cutie," I whispered to the air, "you better be alive."

With my wrecked arm hanging limply, painfully, I dug my hand into the chasm's face and kicked my boots in as well. With awkward shifting of weight and leaping upwards, I began my assent.

The higher I got, the weaker I became. I was about halfway now and my breath was coming in shallow gasps, the pain becoming more and more consuming as I went. It eventually got to the point I barely felt it anymore. I could feel the dirt being ground into the cuts on my hand and my arms with every plunge into the earth. I had to keep going. I had to stay awake and keep climbing. If I passed out now and fell all the way back down to the bottom…I wouldn't be able to get back up, let alone climb all this way again. I had to keep climbing.

I pushed off the cliff face with my boots and threw myself upward. When I reached the peak of my jump, I drove my fingers into the dirt. I hung there for a moment, regaining my energy before repeating.

Eventually, I reached the top of the chasm. I dug my nails into the horizontal ground as deep as I could and pushed off with my feet as hard as I could, managing to heave myself up and over the top. I lay there for a moment. I was bleeding now. The climb had reopened a majority of my cuts and gouges. I could feel it trickling over me, sticking my shirt to my skin.

I made it. The worst was over. The fear of falling all the way to the bottom of the pit wasn't looming over me. I let myself relax for a moment, my heart hammering in my chest. I pulled my hand from the dirt and let it fall back down again.

It landed on something.

I let my head roll to the side and stared for a moment before blinking a few times.

_Flowers?_

Flowers lined the edge of the trench, all laid uniformly, the blossoms facing the edge of the abyss. I moved my fingers slightly, feeling something cold and metal embedded into the ground. With more effort than it should have taken, I managed to turn myself over and get on my knees so I could see. It was a small metal plaque with candles burning at its edges.

_In Honour of _

_Carmilla Karnstein_

_1680-2014_

_She gave her life for all of us_

_For all students present and future_

_You are our hero_

_We miss you_

The embossed symbols for the Zetas and the Summer Society rested in either of the bottom corners. The Silas University crest rested in the middle.

A memorial? I'd been gone so long a memorial had been placed?

It was alarming just how exhausted I was, finding out that this memorial was here just wiped me out completely. Then I noticed something.

There was only _one _memorial.

No one else's names were written on the ground next to mine. No one else had their names embedded in the ground. A spark of hope ignited.

When I made it back to Laura and the others, someone was ripping that thing out of the ground or heads were going to roll.

By the time I made it out into the open air of midnight, I thought I was going to be sick. I was light headed and my stomach churned with an emptiness I hadn't felt since Laura's adventure with interrogations. I stumbled along in the dim moonlight. I clutched my arm to my chest, trying to minimize the pain and movement as much as possible. I could see the dormitories; they weren't all that far away, but it was like a nightmare. It was one of those dreams where no matter how fast you run or how far you go, you always end up in the same place. The more I walked, the further away the building seemed to get.

My legs faltered and I crashed to the ground, the cold slap of dew making me gasp. It took a moment, but I gritted my teeth and heaved up my torso again, then forced myself back to my feet. I had to keep going. I had to keep moving. My vision was blurring as my struggle went on. I was almost there. So close. I focused on each placement of my foot, each stride was carefully calculated to reduce the chance of me falling again. I wasn't sure how many times I could keep getting up.

I managed to make it to the courtyard of the dorms before I collapsed onto the dew drenched grass. I rested, relishing in the coldness and dampness that soothed the scratching dirt from my body and the fire burning in my muscles, numbed the ache in my arm. The soft blades caressed away some of the mud caked under my fingernails and from my many cuts. My vision unfocused and each breath was a fight in and of itself. I knew that was it. I wasn't going to get up again.

This was what dying felt like.

It had been almost three and a half centuries since I experienced death. It brought back a kind of weird nostalgia. A kind of fondness I hadn't expected. Maybe it was of my human life, my carelessness, my blissful ignorance of the world's trials. My obliviousness to betrayal and heartache…to centuries of loneliness. Maybe it was the fondness that came with knowing that, had I not been killed all those years ago, I wouldn't have understood the way love could make you feel. The pain it could bring, the sorrow it could instill in your heart. But also the rebirth it can ignite in you, like a phoenix rising from the ashes to start anew. The willingness to change.

Without death, without Laura…I would never have been able to stand up to my mother. I would never have fought for anything as hard as I did for _her. _I would never have not been a coward.

I could have laughed at myself. The great, centuries old vampire Carmilla, too weak to shift, too weak to poof away in a cloud of smoke. Too weak to even walk anymore. Pondering over my life, my mistakes and sappy emotions for some mortal teenager who poked her nose where it didn't belong. A girl who inspired me to throw myself into an all-consuming light and then, by some freaktastic miracle got me stuck, alive, in the bottom of a hole in the earth for God knows how long.

Now I was going to die.

Pathetic.

My eyelids were heavy by this point, making me struggle to open them again when I blinked.

I could see her.

I could see Laura in the dorm room from where I lay in the grass. Her back was to the window, a blanket pulled tightly around her shoulders. Her hair was a mess, like a bird's nest on top of her head. She was alive. She made it out. She turned her head to the side. Bags accented her once bright eyes, dark enough I could see them easily from a distance. She'd been crying. She was mourning me. She thought I was dead.

"Laura…" I whispered barely any louder than a summer's breeze, my heart sparking at the sight of her.

She was alive.

A tension built in my body that was unbearable. I could have screamed at the top of my lungs, howled like a wolf at the moon. I could have fought a thousand armies and come out victorious. I could have scaled the wall of the dorm and crashed through the window. Anything. I would have done anything just to look into that stupid, overeager face one more time. My heart sung a thousand songs at the mere sight of her, my stomach filled with butterflies.

But I could do nothing about the sudden strength that filled my body; my limbs had long since given up on me. I could feel the energy, the spark, the all-consuming need to get to her, but I had no way of acting upon it. My only hope now is that she would see me.

My heart leapt as she turned, gazing out into the dark night around her. Her eyes were wet and glimmering in the dim moon light. This was it. She would see me. I was sure of it. She would see me and then rally her amazon and the puppy dog and get them to bring me inside. It was going to happen. Laura would save me. How hard could it be to see a person laying in the middle of a grassy field? Impossible to miss, I was certain of it, especially with Laura's attention to detail.

_Come on, Laura, _I urged mentally, _come on, Cupcake, I'm right here. _The girl just stared out the window, as if she was avoiding me deliberately. _Laura, I'm down here. I climbed out of that godforsaken pit for you!_ _Laura!_ _Just look! _Her eyes finally moved to my location. _That's it! That's my girl! I'm here, creampuff! I'm here! _She looked dead into my eyes for and I was almost giddy. I could have laughed or cried or exploded with the feeling it gave me. She'd seen me, she knew I was here. I made it! I survived the impossible!

My mind erupted into frenzy, screaming for my limbs to react, to move, to do _something. _I willed for my hand to raise, for something to happen so that I would draw her attention to me. Even if I could just wail or turn over, move my hand, she would see me. This was it! This is what I had been fighting for since I woke up!

My limbs would not respond.

She shook her head and closed her eyes.

_Oh no. _

_No, no, no, no, no._

She didn't see me! How could she not have seen me!?

This wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that I had fought as hard as I did, struggled for as long as I had and now this was to be my fate. Finally, after all these centuries, I was free from my mother, free from my looming involuntary duty to lure girls to sacrifice, free to be with the girl that I had been protecting since we met, and now I was doomed to watch as she failed to see me. Failed to save me.

_Laura…_I begged, _Laura, I'm done for without you. I need you! Open your eyes, babe, open your eyes and look at me! _A silver line trailed slowly down her cheek. _Goddamn it, Laura! Just. _Look_. At me!_

She pulled the curtain closed.

_DAMNIT! _I was so close. So _damned _close. I climbed out of that stupid pit, made it all the way out and halfway across campus, almost to the dormitories. My eyes burned with frustration. _Damn it, damn it, damn it! _I snarled in my head, my eyes now shut without any hope of me ever opening them again. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that this was how it was all going to end. I didn't want to die. A century or two ago, hell, even just a few _months _ago, I don't know if I could have said that. But that stupid girl in that stupid dorm room…

The feeling in my chest was unbearable. It was as if an elephant was sitting on it, trapping my lungs and crushing my heart. I had no hope left.

I didn't want to die. I couldn't die. Not yet. There's so much left to say, so much I _needed _to say. My anger leaked wet from my eyes, joining the dampness of the dew, it burned hot in my chest. But there was nothing I could do. My limbs stopped responding, every breath a conscious effort. Numbness leeched away at the feeling in my fingers and my legs.

I hadn't expected to survive.

I guess I wasn't going to after all.

Time had passed. I floated blissfully in an eternal darkness, so numb I had once again become warm. It was a nice relief from the agony that had plagued me in consciousness. There was nothing here that hurt, no memory of anything, no awareness of anything.

Just floating.

Just numb.

I couldn't remember how long I had been here, how much time had passed. It didn't matter. There was no progression here. There was no change, there was nothing to feel or fear. I enjoyed that carelessness; that worriless feeling this place brought.

Laura thought I was dead. Maybe I was. I had never stayed dead for a long time. Not even when I was murdered. Mother swept in and changed me before I truly got a chance to feel what death was like. Maybe it was for the best that I died, and then Laura would never have to deal with me again-with my lies and my deceit. And if I _had _lived, then I guess it just would have been more difficult. She would grow old, I'd continue to remain in developmental stasis as I had for centuries. Or we'd have to talk about me turning her. Which would be difficult.

But none of that mattered here. I did my best for Laura, to get back to her, and my best wasn't good enough. I was dead, or dying, and that's all that was left for me. My complete and final doom. I found solace in that.

On the distant breeze I heard the whispers of soft voices, to quiet to know what they were saying, not that I truly cared. Nothing mattered in this void. Maybe it was angels? Or demons? Hell, maybe even those stupid gnomes. Whatever they were, I paid no mind to them. I just floated. Just waited for this darkness to swallow my consciousness entirely.

"_Wait, hang on…what's that over there?"_

The voices got louder, now audible. Still, I didn't pay any mind to the sounds. I could feel myself slipping away into the eternal night that surrounded me. I welcomed it like an old friend. It had been what already felt like forever since I saw Laura in the dorm room, since I saw the bags under her eyes and the tear on her cheek. She had already accepted my death, already begun grieving me. What did it matter now if I lived?

"_Oh my God…it's a girl!"_

Even louder now, the voices shook the darkness, strange vibrations fluttering against my skin. _No. Oh no. Not now. Please, not now. _I pleaded for the angels' to be silent, to let this darkness pull me in and stop my pain forever. I implored for them to stop their speaking and their whispering, to leave me to my fate and allow me to drift off into non-existence.

"_Holy crap…Carmilla..?"_

"_Carmilla!?"_

The ground shook underneath me, what seemed like hundreds of footsteps running got louder and louder and louder until it filled my ears completely. The rumbling threw the numbness from me, bringing with it the agony I felt before.

"Hey, Carmilla!" strong hands rolled me onto my back and grabbed my face, prying open my heavy eyelids. "You still in there, you snarky freak?" The light was blinding, throwing me from absolute darkness and into an unbearable whiteness and took with it my suicidal wishes. I didn't know what was going on. I didn't know why it was happening _now, _but that didn't matter.

It took a moment, but eventually my eyes managed to pull shapes out of the blinding light. Danny, who I only recognised because of her long red hair, was crouched over me, holding my eyelid open and a couple other people stood behind and around her. The light was from the multiple torches held by some of the other people. Was it still night time? Had it really not been all that long? I exhaled heavily between chapped lips and she and everyone else emitted small noises of celebration.

"Oh holy crap, I could _kiss you, _you undead freak!" Her hand moved from my face to my arm and I jerked away with strength I didn't think I still had, a shriek exploding from my dry mouth. "Sorry, sorry!"

"Her arm's messed up, dude. Like _really _messed up."

"Jenn, pass me the med kit, she's bleeding everywhere." Danny caught what sounded like the muffled thud of a backpack. "Kirsch, call LaFontaine, tell them to pick up some blood from the school hospital."

"You got it, Psycho Society." I heard dialing faintly, the phone was answered quickly "Hey, Science, we need help…" Danny's voice took over again

"Sisters, find something to put her on, like a board or something, we don't know how messed up she is, don't want to risk bumping her around too much."

"On it." The footsteps of at least four people hurried away.

"What do you want us to do?"

"Zetas, you guys and me wait for my Sisters to get back, make sure no one gets too close to Carmilla. We may have stopped the big ball of evil, but we don't know if anything else is lurking around here."

"Science is on their way to the hospital right now. They said they and Perry would be here as soon as they could. Dude, your friends are such bros."

"Good." Danny crouched down again, "Carmilla? Hey, Carmilla, I need you to stay awake, okay?" she rummaged through the medical kit. I could smell the rubbing alcohol before she even opened it. "Come on. Tell me off in every way you can think of. Let's do it. I'll start. You look like something that came out of the rear end of a cow. Your turn."

"How did you find me?" I breathed, so quietly I wasn't sure they could hear me. My ears felt like they were full of cotton balls.

"Night marches. We started them again after the whole thing with the dean. You made some _serious _changes around here, you zombie. Can't say I've _ever _been happier to see you than I am right now." She poured water over my hand up to my arm, wiping the mud off my skin. "This is gonna hurt." She doused my entire hand and arm with the alcohol and I ground my teeth and growled.

"You didn't get soft on me while I was gone did you, Xena?"

"You wish, Elvira. Kirsch, hold this bandage in place while I wrap it."

"Okay," rougher hands grabbed my arm, holding a fairly large chunk of gauze over a majority of the cuts on my forearm. Danny pulled a tensor bandage over it and began wrapping, the tension was oddly comforting.

"Laura?" I whispered and Danny paused for a moment before tying off the bandage.

"She's alive. A little messed up, but she's alive." I nodded, no longer finding the strength to speak.

I heard the dialling of buttons yet again. It was so loud that I must have been Danny's as she crouched next to me. The phone rang and rang so many times I thought it was going to go straight to voicemail. Then, it picked up.

"Hello?" I could hear the voice now, loud and clear. She was groggy, must have just fallen asleep.

"Hey, Hollis."

"Danny? It's four in the morning, what do you want?"

"Come to your window."

"Danny, what are you talking about? Can't I just sleep?"

"I have a surprise for you, trust me, it's one you're gonna wanna see." I heard the ruffling and shuffling of sheets and pillows being dishevelled, along with bitter murmuring and muttering from Laura's end. I forced my eyes open completely. I wanted to see her. I wanted to see her eyes staring into my own. I could barely contain myself.

All at once, the curtains flew open and there she was.

My girl, staring me in the eyes. I could feel my lips curl without conscious effort. She just stared at me, Danny crouched over me, Kirsch just a little ways away. I heard Perry and LaF hustling across the court yard towards us now, a determined lumber followed by quick footed steps. Perry was chirping, her mouth going a thousand miles a minute. Laura didn't react. She didn't even move. The phone was still to her ear, free hand still gripping the curtain.

Danny lowered the phone to my lips.

I didn't say anything, unsure if, as before, she hadn't seen me. I could hear her breathing on the other end of the line and I basked in it.

"Carm..?"

It came as a broken whisper, the sound that shattered my heart. It was the sound of disbelief, of fear that she had been dreaming everything up until this point. I could feel my eyes start to burn and my throat close. I had been prepared to be sassy. To throw out my signature nonchalant 'hey cupcake' but I couldn't. I swallowed hard, my cold exterior now faltering completely. My brows furrowed and bottom lip quivered against my will.

"Yeah, Laura, yeah it's me." I wheezed into the receiver. Her hand flew to her mouth.

"How?! How did you…when did you—" she blinked. She disappeared from view. "I'm coming! I'm coming, Carm! Please, please don't go anywhere! Please!" she was sobbing now, so violently I could barely understand her.

"I'm not going anywhere," I whimpered, unable to stop the tears from flowing. "I'm not going anywhere."

**Welp, that's all folks. I was thinking about writing a part two but I don't know if that's what everyone else wants so be sure to let me know what you think in the reviews.**

**If you're new to my stories you can skip this next little bit where I explain some stuff.**

**Hey everyone,**

**These past two years or so has been a bit of a rollercoaster. The first year I started university and entered into my first long term relationship with a wonderful girl, so time management has been an issue. This current year I endured a couple of losses in my family which has been difficult and I'm still struggling with the aftermath of it in regards to how it is effecting some of my other family members. I haven't had time to write or really get into much of anything. I will be trying to pick up my other fics and I thank those of you who stuck around for your patients. Someone hunted me down on my tumblr and asked me to keep writing and they caught me in the midst of this rough patch so I didn't reply. I am sorry to you, loyal reader, and I'll be sure to at the very least finish the fic to the best of my ability.**


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